Coin Collecting in the UK

[pendragon1998]

I'm just beginning to make a small foray into collecting UK Silver Britannias and it's got me thinking about UK collectors. Do people in the UK and Europe collect coins in a different manner than Americans? My general impression seems to be that they're not as serious about the hobby over there as Americans are. I don't see many foreign collectors on the forums and I don't hear stories about the big collectors over there. What's the hobby like across the pond?

[Zoins]

It may be interesting to check auctions on eBay UK. I also haven't seen much evidence of activity going by eBay US auctions. There are some low mintage modern UK commems that sell for less than issue price. For example the £2 1997 bimetallic gold proof and the £2 2003 DNA 50th Anniversary gold coin were both issued at £295 with mintages of just 2,500 each. Even though the value of the gold content has gone up from £100 to £160, Chard Coins is selling these coins for £275-295 (on both eBay and their 24.carat.co.uk website). This means the collector premium for these coins has gone down dramatically as the intrinsic gold value has gone up while total value has diminished slightly. The 1997 coin is the UK's first ever bimetallic issue. The US's first bimetallic issue, the 2000 Library of Congress MS coin is selling near $4,000 due to a low mintage (that is about double the UK coins mentioned). Has any modern UK issue moved dramatically in price, say like Canada's Medal of Bravery enamel dollar or any number of US issues?

 

The other thing is I think it took TPGs and conditional rarity to jumpstart up the US modern market due to the ultra high mintages. If UK/Euro collectors aren't going by TPGs and pops, the market won't be as hot, especially if the mint is satisfying demand.

 

This is just from 3rd hand observation so I'd love to hear from collectors across the pond as well.

 

References:

 

1997 bimetallic

 

2003 DNA

[syracusian]

Do people in the UK and Europe collect coins in a different manner than Americans?

 

 

Yes.

 

My general impression seems to be that they're not as serious about the hobby over there as Americans are.

 

 

They are dead serious, trust me on that.

 

 

I don't see many foreign collectors on the forums

 

 

That's because we have our own forums.

[Zoins]

I don't see many foreign collectors on the forums

That's because we have our own forums.

What are some good UK coin forums to check out?

[syracusian]

Oh, I wasn't referring to the UK, but there are quite a few. Let me get back to you on this.

 

 

As for slabs, they are gaining popularity everyday, but there are no European TPG services yet, so (for those who like them) the coins are sent to the US for this.

[Zoins]

Oh, I wasn't referring to the UK, but there are quite a few. Let me get back to you on this.

What countries were you refering to?

[syracusian]

Well, I'm Greek and there is a forum here,but the traffic is very slow. But there are several forums in other countries,and especially the UK.

 

One thing that I have noticed with UK collectors, is that they join the forum here or across the street, and then, after a while they stop posting.

 

One reason for this is the lack of subjects of interest to them, especially for the hammered collectors. I believe that they look for much more esoteric subjects, their questions often remain unanswered and the abundance of topics on TPGs and the likes is not helping either, considering that the majority of the traditional collectors are totally indifferent,if not allergic to them.

[Zoins]

One reason for this is the lack of subjects of interest to them, especially for the hammered collectors. I believe that they look for much more esoteric subjects, their questions often remain unanswered and the abundance of topics on TPGs and the likes is not helping either, considering that the majority of the traditional collectors are totally indifferent,if not allergic to them.

Interesting. I'm not sure what a good way to separate out TPG related topics is b/c a lot of the US market is now driven by TPGs. One way could to have a filter option to hide topics which include any number of words related to TPGs and slabbing.

[MunkyMan95]

One reason for this is the lack of subjects of interest to them, especially for the hammered collectors. I believe that they look for much more esoteric subjects, their questions often remain unanswered and the abundance of topics on TPGs and the likes is not helping either, considering that the majority of the traditional collectors are totally indifferent,if not allergic to them.

Interesting. I'm not sure what a good way to separate out TPG related topics is b/c a lot of the US market is now driven by TPGs. One way could to have a filter option to hide topics which include any number of words related to TPGs and slabbing.

 

Or they could just join a completely different forum...

[Zoins]

Or they could just join a completely different forum...

That's what they are doing now but the end result is a lot of expertise is lost, even to people who would purchase and slab those coins, if only they got some decent info on it. The net effect is less people slabbing non-US coinage b/c even though there are pro-TPG people here, there's no one to answer their questions.

 

Some of the US lurkers across the street have said they don't post b/c of all the TPG discussion, but if they have expertise that's not getting volunteered, even American pro-TPG people suffer.

[syracusian]

It's not only about TPGs and afterall, let's not forget that these forums are hosted by these very same TPGs, so it's only natural to have discussions about them.

 

If a UK collector comes over and posts a question about a particular Freeman variety of a Victorian penny, how many people would be able to help him? Likewise, I could ask endless questions about the Kapodistrias copper coins' varieties from Greece and not a single member here or across the street would have a clue about them,let alone be able to answer.

 

So, obviously, the reason for my presence here is not to deepen my knowledge on modern (1828 todate) Greek coins, nor to show off my collection. I am here for a wide variety of reasons, and because I'm interested in other countries' coinage. Greek coins stopped being my only collecting interest about 3-4 years ago due to the huge rise of their prices, the unhealthy competition and if you want, my own saturation. So, these forums have a lot to offer to me and I have made some very good friends along the way too. In fact, my whole perspective of the hobby has changed,undoubtedly due to the interaction that takes place daily on these boards.

 

On the other hand ,the scholar and entirely dedicated to his series and/or country collector, probably won't find the answers he's been looking for here. The subjects that are discussed in these two forums are different and much more "general", in short not even near to what he might have been expecting, at least this is the impression I get. Nevertheless do not underestimate the lurkers, who for their own reasons, check these boards daily but silently.

 

I hope that this little personal rant ,even though off topic, was helpful to answer the initial questions at the first post about the presence of non US collectors on these boards,or rather the lack of it.

 

 

edited for clarity of content

[pendragon1998]

These have been some very interesting posts for me to read. As an American collector, I've often gotten the feeling that I'm a bit isolated from the rest of the world's collectors, and I suspected that I had a false impression of them. Perhaps "less serious" was a poor choice of words; what I meant was that my (probably incorrect) impression was that they seemed to be less concerned about breaking grades down as far as Americans do (i.e. is that coin a MS67, MS68, MS69, etc). I certainly didn't intend to offend with my admittedly off the cuff post.

 

I'm fascinated to learn more about a non-American perspective on this hobby. I also got a little kick out of you calling Greek coins 1828-present "modern" considering the age of my own country. While 1828 isn't exactly ancient, it's very nearly as old as my country itself!

[syracusian]

Hey, it takes a lot more to offend me. Besides,I finally passed the 150 posts milestone thanks to this thread.

 

 

I'm calling the post 1828 coins moderns, because of the Ancient Greek coins, often referred to as simply Greek coins ,so I'm using the term modern in order to avoid a possible confusion.

 

Here's a couple of UK based forums as promised:

 

predecimal.com , for pre-1970 British coins

 

slabbing in Europe thread found at the above forum

 

onlinecoins.co.uk

[gunmoney-migration]

There is a new TPG company after opening up in the UK and rate coins on a scale of 1-100.

Myself I think TPG and point and being in the No1 spot with top collection is over rated. And forces competion in to the collecting market, I could not buy a coin because some one else says it MS70, with out seeing it.

Point of note! there is a proof Irish coins graded by a TPG company that is fake,

I pity the person who buys that coin, I like to see and know what I am buying.

And buy from the same few dealers all the time.

Where some collectors pay 100's if not 1000's for $ for MS70 coins.

I think collectors in Europe would perfer to get a nice balanced collection e.g if I was collecting TPG SBA I would like a set in the same grade and tone and be happy with that.

Plus as pointed out our history in coins goes back 1000's of years, you should see the state of some of the Edward 1st pennys and half pennies I have taking pride and place in my collection, chipped, cracked, etc, but I appreciate the history in those coins.

 

For Euro coins try www.euroswapper.com there is also a world coin page